Friday, November 15, 2013

Michigan wolf hunt starts today, despite protests

By JOHN FLESHER, AP Environmental Writer

Updated 1:10 pm, Wednesday, November 13, 2013

FILE - In this April 18, 2008, file photo provided by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife shows a gray wolf. Michigan's first wolf hunt since the
animal was placed on the endangered species list nearly 40 years ago
gets underway Friday, Nov. 15, 2013. The state has issued licenses to
1,200 people.
Photo: Gary Kramer, AP

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — During a lifetime of hunting, John Haggard has targeted elk in Colorado, moose in Alaska and caribou in Canada. Now comes a new challenge closer to home: the gray wolf.

Michigan's
first wolf hunt since the animal was placed on the endangered species
list nearly 40 years ago gets underway Friday. Haggard is among 1,200
people licensed to participate and he's been counting the days. "They're a crafty animal," said Haggard, 72, of Charlevoix. "Even at my age, I'm always willing to learn a new skill."

Michigan
is the sixth state to authorize wolf hunting following the removal of
federal protections in recent years, a testament to the strong comeback
of a species that was close to eradication in the lower 48 states. The
season runs through December, unless the maximum kill of 43 is
reached beforehand.

As elsewhere, the hunt is bitterly contested. Supporters say Michigan's wolf population — which the Department of Natural Resources
estimates at 658, all in the Upper Peninsula — is healthy and secure.
They contend a hunt is needed to rein in a predator that has killed or
injured hundreds of cattle, sheep and dogs since the mid-1990s.

Opponents
say the damage and danger are exaggerated. Relatively few farms have
experienced problems, they say, and the landowners have legal authority
to shoot wolves caught attacking livestock. "There is no sound scientific basis to be killing these animals," said Nancy Warren, an Upper Peninsula resident and regional director of the National Wolfwatcher Coalition. State wildlife officials "are bowing down to special interest groups," she said.

DNR biologist Brian Roell
acknowledged that a disproportionate number of livestock attacks have
happened on a single farm whose owner has drawn criticism for practices
such as leaving animal carcasses unburied and failing to use
state-provided fencing. But
26 attacks were reported on 10 other farms in the same hunting zone
between 2010 and 2012, despite use of non-lethal controls such as
flashing lights and guard donkeys, the department says. The
hunt is a last-resort means "to reduce conflicts in areas where our
current tools just haven't cut it," DNR fur-bearing animal specialist Adam Bump said.

Wolves
wandered Michigan prior to European settlement, which began in the late
1600s, but were all but wiped out by 1960, when a government bounty
program was repealed. As state and federal law made killing the animals
illegal, members of a remnant population in Minnesota migrated into
Wisconsin, then northward to the Upper Peninsula, where their presence
was confirmed in 1989 and their numbers rose steadily.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
removed protection from wolves in the Great Lakes region in 2012.
Minnesota and Wisconsin had hunts last year and are doing so again. In
Minnesota, 54 had been killed as of Wednesday, with a maximum of 220
allowed. Just over 200 had been killed in Wisconsin, where the quota
is 251. An
additional 234 have been killed in the Northern Rockies states of
Montana, Idaho and Wyoming this year, where the seasons are still open.

Michigan's Natural Resources Commission
scheduled a hunt under authority granted by the Legislature this
summer, following approval of a bill designating wolves as a
game species.
Opponents
have gathered enough voter signatures to require a statewide referendum
in 2014 on the game species law. They're also circulating petitions
seeking a vote on the second measure. If they succeed, this year's hunt
may be the only one.

The
DNR has designated three hunting zones. One includes the city of
Ironwood and an adjacent township in the far western Upper Peninsula.
The second, to the north and east, includes parts of Baraga, Houghton,
Ontonagon and Gogebic counties. The third includes portions of Luce and
Mackinac counties on the eastern side of the peninsula.

Opponents
this week made a last-minute bid to stop the hunt with a television
commercial in the Detroit, Lansing and Grand Rapids markets. The ad
accuses state officials of basing decisions on bad information,
including inaccurate reports of wolves threatening people, and urges
Gov. Rick Snyder to intervene. "It
is troubling to think about this shy, very intelligent species being
gunned down for no other reason than trophies and out of hatred," said Jill Fritz, director of the Keep Michigan Wolves Protected Campaign.

Although
some on social media have called for ridding the Upper Peninsula of
wolves, many hunt supporters insist that's not their intent. "Every hunter that I know likes the idea of having wolves out there," said George Lindquist, a vice president of Michigan United Conservation Clubs. "They just feel we should be managing them like any other wildlife."

A
regulated hunt is preferable to poaching, which happens now as
frustrated residents take matters into their own hands, Lindquist added. Travis Smith,
of Marquette, who will be joining the hunt, said the much of the
opposition comes from Michigan's Lower Peninsula and other states
without wolves.
"I
have nothing against wolves," said Smith, 33. "But it's a lot easier to
appreciate them from afar than it is when you're living close to them."

Many
Native Americans in Michigan oppose killing wolves, an animal central
to their spirituality and culture. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe is
hosting a candlelight and sacred fire vigil Thursday night to honor the
animal before the hunt begins. "It's going to be a very painful thing for us," tribal spokesman Frank Cloutier said. "We do consider the gray wolf to be a cousin of ours, and 43 will be taken."
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Mont., contributed to this story.

Vigil held for wolf hunt

Supporters stand outside the Saginaw Chippewa Academy lodge with
candles lit during a wolf vigil the night before the season opens on
wolves an animal sacred to the Anishnaabeg Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013. The
2013 wolf season opens opens Nov. 15 in three areas of the Upper
Peninsula and will run until Dec. 31 or until the target for each wolf
management unit is reached with a total limit of 43. (Sun photo by KEN
KADWELL/@KenKadwell).

By SUSAN Field, The Morning Sun

Posted:
11/14/13

Daisy Kostus, right, of Sandford stands outside the
Saginaw Chippewa Academy lodge with others during a wolf vigil the night
before the season opens on wolves an animal sacred to the Anishnaabeg Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013. "The wolf is really important to me, my
brother's spirit name was Wolf and his son's name was Little Wolf," said
Kostus. (Sun photo by KEN KADWELL/@KenKadwell).

In Carla Sheahan’s eyes, hunting wolves is tantamount to the slaughter of Native Americans.

Part of the traditional teachings, the Spirit gave the first man a wolf, as a companion, and the two came to love one another.

Sheahan’s son, Akiiwaande Makwa Sheahan, 9, learned to teachings in
school and was with his mother and many others at the Saginaw Chippewa
Indian Tribe’s wolf hunt vigil.

Akiiwaande Makwa, which means “Brown Bear” in the Ojibwe language, held a
candle with his mother and others as a prayer for the safety of the
wolf on the eve of Michigan’s first wolf hunt.

In the teachings of the Mishomis Book, what happens to the wolf will also happen to his Native American brother.

Sheahan doesn’t want history to repeat itself. “Those are our brothers,” she said. “It’s part of our culture. “Like Natives were slaughtered, that’s what the government is doing with wolves.”
Nathan Isaac, who teaches the Ojibwe language at the academy, spoke of the teachings after a sacred fire ceremony in the lodge.

As supporters of wolf protection stood in a circle with their candles,
Isaac said another teaching is that man and wolf will both suffer
hardships.

While there were laws to protect wolves, which were hunted to
near-extinction, the species is gaining strength and numbers, only to be
“knocked down” again, Isaac said. “What does that mean for our people in the future,” he said, adding that
Anishinaabe communities are trying to spread the word that wolves are
sacred and should not be hunted for sport.

Hunting is integral to Anishinaabe culture, and Isaac said he is not opposed to the practice. “I’ll go out and hunt,” he said. “But I’m not going to hunt my brother.” Struggling to keep his emotions in check, Isaac said students at the
academy signed a petition asking for the protection of the wolf.
Jill Fritz, a member of the group “Keep Michigan Wolves Protected,” said
the Legislative action that allowed the hunt wolves was adopted by a
minority that is in control in Lansing.

She said legislators skirted a proposal to stop the hunt by allowing the
Michigan Natural Resources Commission to designate game species.

Michigan’s wolf hunt, which starts Friday, is designated in three areas
in the Upper Peninsula that have been labeled as places with chronic
wolf-human conflict.

Fritz doesn’t see it that way; instead, and she is working on stopping the hunt.

Members of Keep Michigan Wolves Protected are collecting signatures for a referendum in the November 2014 election.

Fritz said enough have been collected for one ballot question, asking voters to decide if wolves should be a game species.

She is now collecting signatures for a referendum that will ask voters
whether the Michigan Natural Resources Commission should be able to
designate game species.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

.

.

Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

.

“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone